Category Archives for before you ask my phone number was not 867-5309

Jenny was, apparently, the most popular Vietnamese woman in America, and it just so happens that she was located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Unfortunately, one day Jenny had to give up her phone number with no warning. Her friends in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Dallas, and California continued to call her, leaving long, panicky voicemails in Vietnamese.

I got her old number. And lots of Vietnamese voicemails.

It took me several months of broken English conversations, but eventually I convinced Jenny’s friend in Dallas that I was not, in fact, Jenny. And then her friend in Los Angeles. And then her posse in Baton Rouge. And eventually, the Jenny phone calls stopped.

I had forgotten about Jenny until I got my latest cell phone number, which once belonged to The Great Gigi. Who is Gigi? you ask, How is she so great?

Well… let’s just say Gigi gets a lot of phone calls at 2 am.

She also gets many a text at that hour; such eloquent messages as “Wut up grl?” and “Say gigi how u doin”. Gigi’s “friends”, who range from California to Phoenix to Galveston, all seem American, but their grasp of simple concepts and the English language are no better than Jenny’s Vietnamese friends. I have spoken to a charming young man-friend of Gigi’s in Galveston several times, and my conversations go something like this:

Man-friend: Yo GigiMe: This isn’t Gigi.Man-friend: Where she at?Me: I don’t know. As I told you the last three times you called, this isn’t her number anymore.Man-friend: You gotta tell me her new number!Me: I have no idea who Gigi is!Man-friend: I am soooooo sorry! Please tell me her number!Me: Please stop calling! I don’t know Gigi!Man-friend: Okay. Thanks.

A few hours later I’ll get a text like this: Pleze tull me gigi numbr.

Time out – this post is much too text heavy, don’t you think?

Scholarly Ike does not approve.

Anyway, random inconveniences that make great stories have been happening to me my entire life. Like the time a misunderstanding at the salon where I got my hair done before prom ended with a potential warrant out for my arrest. Or that time my bus driver in high school mistook something completely benign that I said for a racial slur and sent me to the principal’s office. Stuff like that.

Thankfully, the Gigi phone calls have slowed down and I haven’t been threatened with arrest since 2002, but I was reminded of the good old Gigster and my weird luck after my dad called to tell me the latest strange thing that has randomly happened to me: My old credit card, no longer in use, had somehow been charged for a mysterious DVD of the month club that not even Google has heard of.

This month’s DVD selection, sent to my house in a timely manner (got to give this mystery company credit for punctuality)? When Women Lost Their Tails. Never heard of it? You’ll regret that after you read Yahoo movies’ captivating synopsis.

1975: Busty prehistoric women cavort in this silly sequel to WHEN WOMEN HAD TAILS.